Service Quality Perception Between Physicians and Patients

• Main Authors: Hsu-YuanSun, 孫緒媛
• Other Authors: James O. Stanworth
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/18490547867743725115

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 國際經營管理研究所碩士在職專班 === 101 === Service quality is important to monitor and manage in hospitals since it influences patients’ choice about their provider. While patients’ perceptions of service quality are important we lack understanding about the dimensions relevant to contexts outside the Western world, such as the Chinese. While managers need to be concerned with what patients think about service quality, they also need to consider how well physicians understand these dimensions. In this study we set out to identify the service quality dimensions relevant to patients in a Chinese context. We then compare these dimensions with what physicians’ believe is critical to the patients’ service experience. This study is important in revealing the dimensions Chinese patients construct around the service experience. It also reveals novel insights about the way physicians’ interpret the patients’ experience. The critical incident technique (CIT) was used to explore the dimensions of professional service quality from physicians’ and patients’ perspectives. Data were collected as 557 complaint and compliment incidents reported by patients regarding physicians’ service quality from 2007-2011 at a community hospital in Taiwan. Forty-one physicians were interviewed to collect 132 critical incidents as 54 complaints 78 compliments and draw forth the major dimensions which physicians considered as critical for patients. We find a total of eight service quality dimensions as professional, efficiency, chin-chieh, respect, patience, responsibility, value and ethics. Both patients and physicians report a similar understanding of the dimensions that are relevant to service quality. Discrepancies exist, however, in the ranking, subcategories and definition of the (dis)satisfactory dimensions between patients and physicians. These findings offer new contributions to the theoretical literature on service quality. The dimensions reported here have not, as yet, been reported in the literature on patient service quality. The findings also can be used by managers to provide empirical insights about service quality performance in a way that helps hospitals adopt improvement strategies to have the physician understand the patient-oriented demand and avoid negative situations which may make patients dissatisfied.